Way cleared for Nvidia to sell H200 AI chips to China under new rules

Summary paragraph

The Commerce Department cleared Nvidia to sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips to China, setting conditions intended to limit how the advanced hardware can be used and how much is shipped. Under the new export rules, Nvidia must keep an adequate supply in the United States and have the chips reviewed by a third party before they are exported. The rules also bar China from using the chips for military purposes and cap China’s purchases at no more than 50% of what Nvidia sells to U.S. customers.

The decision arrives after President Donald Trump said earlier that the administration would allow the company to sell the H200 to “approved customers” in China, according to the report. In its prepared statement, Nvidia applauded the move, saying the company wants to “allow America’s chip industry to compete” while supporting “high paying jobs and manufacturing in America,” and adding that offering H200 to Commerce-approved commercial customers “strikes a thoughtful balance.”

Nvidia said its exports would go to customers vetted by the Department of Commerce and that the chips would be offered to “approved commercial customers” under the review process laid out in the rules. The new Commerce licensing framework, as described, effectively lowers the bar for exports compared with earlier restrictions by allowing sales with added safeguards rather than outright limits.

Under the conditions set by the Bureau of Industry and Security, the United States requires that Nvidia maintain an adequate supply of H200 chips domestically. The rules also require a third-party review of the H200 chips before they can be shipped to China, a mechanism meant to add an additional step to the export-control process.

The licensing terms also address use and scale. The rules state that China will not be allowed to use the chips for military purposes. They further restrict how much China can import, saying China is not permitted to import more than 50% of the chips sold to U.S. customers.

The H200 is not Nvidia’s most advanced product. Nvidia’s more advanced chips—Blackwell and the upcoming Rubin—were not included in the set of approved chips for export under the new rules, leaving those product lines outside the China licensing approval described in the report.

The approval has also triggered objections from a group of Democratic senators, who said the chips could help China’s military and improve its ability to carry out cyberattacks against the United States. Their argument was tied to the potential national-security risk associated with exporting advanced AI hardware, even with the conditions described in the Commerce rules.

The approval reflected broader concerns about Nvidia’s growing access to the White House and the relationship between President Trump and Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang, the report said. At the same time, the report noted that concerns about China finding ways to use the chips to develop its own AI products have been a longstanding issue, including a primary concern raised by the Biden administration, which had sought to limit exports.

The reporting also pointed to an earlier arrangement between Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices in August, in which they agreed to share 15% of revenues from chip sales to China with the U.S. government as part of a deal to secure export licenses for semiconductors. The H200 approval described in the report builds on that broader pattern of licensing tied to conditions and arrangements aimed at addressing security concerns.